Pub family divided over potential smoking ban

Haylie Ellis, who runs the Three Fishes, does not believe the potential ban would affect the pub trade

A family that runs one of the first pubs in the country to ban smoking indoors is divided over the potential of a smoking ban in places like beer gardens.

The Three Fishes pub in Shrewsbury banned smoking inside in 1994, 13 years before the law was introduced.

This week, Sir Keir Starmer confirmed the government was looking at tougher rules on outdoor smoking to reduce the number of preventable deaths linked to tobacco use.

"I don't think it will affect trade that much, people are always going to want a pint," said Haylie Ellis, the pub's landlady.

Kevin Ellis, Three Fishes' licensee, said the ban would impact the trade

"People just go outside for a cigarette now, so it's not going to put people off having a pint.

"If they have to go and stand in the rain to have a ciggy, they probably will."

The details of the plans remain unclear, but smoking could be banned in pub gardens, outdoor restaurants, and outside hospitals and sports grounds.

The Three Fishes does not have a beer garden, so Ms Ellis sends smokers across the road for a cigarette.

"Directly outside of pubs as you’re going in and out, I would say, is not a good place to be smoking, but I think you could have a designated area within beer gardens," she said.

Her father, Kevin Ellis, the licensee, believed it would have a negative impact on the pub trade.

"I don't know how it's going to go. We do have a lot of smokers and non-smokers here."

"How's the law going to work with that, who’s going to police it?

"If you look at it nationally, there’s lots of places like railway stations where you’re not supposed to smoke, or even vape, and yet it carries on."